Our Work in Seafood

The fishing and aquaculture sector is currently one of the world’s fastest growing sectors, with more than 58 million men, women and children involved in fishing and aquaculture globally, according to a 2014 UN FAO report. With the rapid expansion of the sector has come an increase in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, a practice that heightens the likelihood of over-fishing and increases risks of labor abuses, as vessels undertake longer and longer voyages in order to find fish, trapping their crews on board for longer and longer periods of time. Forced labor, child labor, and human trafficking of fishers sold into slavery on vessels have been widely reported.

Verité is working to promote ethical labor practice in the seafood sector through advocacy and research that sheds further light on the problem, and through development of resources and approaches that help governments and companies build practical, sustainable solutions.

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The following resources provide an overview of the risks of labor abuse associated with fishing and seafood production, and present Verité original research on forced labor in shrimp and fish production in Southeast Asia.

This report provides an overview of the sector’s risk factors, including hazardous/undesirable work, a vulnerable, easily replaced, and/or low-skilled workforce and the prevalence of migrant workers. Workforce vulnerability in fishing derives from a variety of causes, some of which have to do with the typical structure of employment relationships in the industry, and some of which have to do with the economic and education levels of the worker populations in question.

While much attention has been paid to the environmental and economic aspects of the Philippines tuna sector, little has been paid to labor conditions, and even less to specific indicators of forced labor. This report sheds light on the presence of these issues.

While the shrimp sector has been promoted as a needed source of employment, previous research has tied the shrimp sector to labor, environmental, and human rights abuses. This report explores what few others have: the indicators of forced labor.

Fishing plays a large role in the Indonesian economy; over 6.2 million people are involved in fishing activities in there. Hazardous working conditions, coercive pay structures, and harassment are just some of the labor rights violations that were discovered and reported here.

The Philippines has been a source of male workers for almost all parts of the world, particularly the Middle East, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, North America, and Europe. Certain workforce mechanisms and policies in these developed countries exploit the vulnerabilities of these men. Working conditions combined with the Filipino workers’ significant lack of education on relevant topics, results in migrant workers falling prey to unscrupulous employers and human traffickers.

The first step companies can take is to trace the seafood in their supply chain back to its origins. Labor and human rights abuses are linked to both the extraction and processing of fish, so scrutiny of supply chains is necessary at every step in seafood production. Corporate efforts to understand and monitor the environmental implications of their suppliers’ fishing practice should be extended to incorporate efforts to monitor for possible human rights implications as well. Once companies achieve visibility into their supply chains, they should identify specific risks they may face, and improve management systems and business practices to better protect workers from potential abuses. Companies can also participate in ongoing capacity building efforts, public policy advocacy and stakeholder dialogue.

What is Verité Doing?

Verité consults with a wide range of sector stakeholders, including multi-national brands, suppliers, governments and civil society representatives, helping them understand and address labor and human rights problems in the industry. We seek to help retailers, brands and buyers, traders, fish producers, and others that wish to eliminate the risk of labor abuse and lead the ﬁeld in ethical seafood supply through a series of key steps, beginning with understanding and analysis, and ending with direct action to resolve problems. We are currently working with American seafood companies (retailers, importers, restaurants) to develop a model global compliance plan around trafficking and are piloting efforts in hot spots to determine good practices in compliance areas such as auditing, training, systems building, and research.

Specific Verité services include:

Assessment. Verité’s shadow audits and independent assessments help companies identify risks of labor abuse that they face in seafood supply chains, and improve management systems to better protect workers from these abuses.

Training. Verité boosts critical competencies at all levels of the supply chain with training programs that focus on the root causes of labor abuses and impart the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to resolve these abuses.

Resources. Verité develops customized tools and learning modules to assist companies in protecting workers from labor abuses in the harvesting and processing of seafood.